Friday 30 June 2017

22 Things I Learned from Transformers: The Last Knight


1. It’s easy to sneak onboard a military flight with a robot the size of a fridge freezer.

2. Oxford, Westminster, and the White Cliffs of Dover are minutes apart.

3. Decommissioned submarines come fully equipped with pickled ginger and grated radishes.

4. Transformers have been on Earth for several thousand years, arbitrarily intervening in our wars to keep themselves busy. Only the tireless efforts of Albert Einstein, Frederick Douglass and others have kept their presence hidden.

5. Oxford lectures take place while – and indeed, consist solely of – wandering around museums making snide remarks about history.

6. Astrophysicists speak only in simplistic metaphors, and refer to these loudly and grandly as ‘physics’ (eg ‘Like Tiger Woods taking a swing: physics!’; ‘Earth will cook like a bag of popcorn in a microwave: physics!’).

7. Transformers can now reassemble themselves when they’re dismembered.

8. Except when they can’t.

9. English women find it acceptable to spy on the passionate lovemaking of their relatives.

10. Transformers hang out in Cuba because they seek both non-extradition territories and places to tan.

11. Stonehenge was at the exact centre of Pangaea.

12. There’s always a mysterious artefact.

13. There’s always a prophecy.

14. There’s always an air strike (or twelve).

15. There’s always a secret message hidden in the childhood relic from the father who you always thought neglected you.

16. There’s always a bit where Anthony Hopkins says ‘dude’, ‘bitch’, or ‘bro’. Oh no wait, that one’s new.

17. Two films in and already Mark Wahlberg looks bored.

18. There’s only one female Transformer, and she’s a villainous temptress from deep space with the power to warp men’s minds.

19. Which does beg the question: where did these baby Dinobots come from?

20. The headquarters of the European Space Agency look a lot like London’s City Hall; Sir John Soane’s Museum is a private residence; and London streets consist of nothing but one intersection near Bank, the Mall, and Westminster Bridge, repeating over and over during a car chase like the backgrounds of a cheap cartoon.

21. In the world of Transformers, everyone is gratingly obnoxious to everyone else most of the time. (When not being obnoxious, people either ignore one another, or tell one another they’re the best mechanic/father/honourable knight they’ve ever seen).

22. No-one crashes two planets into one another like Michael Bay crashes two planets into one another.

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Thursday 22 June 2017

22 Things I Learned from The Mummy


1. Iraq is full of crows.

2. Every blockbuster should open with news reports about the progress of Crossrail.

3. Ancient Egyptians dumped their problems in Persia.

4. There’s no problem so big it can’t be solved with an airstrike.

5. Birds fly at the cruising altitude of a military cargo plane.

6. There’s only one parachute on military cargo planes.

7. Medieval England is back in vogue (see also King Arthur and Transformers: They Keep Coming).

8. There’s a secret hideout for monster hunters under Aldwych.

9. It’s not an easter egg if it gets a close-up.

10. The only way to establish the setting is a female public toilet is through a prominently placed tampon dispenser.

11. The words ‘sarcophagus’ and ‘hieroglyphics’ are impenetrable archaeological jargon.

12. Having four irises is scary, apparently.

13. Big Ben is in the Square Mile.

14. In the midst of an apocalyptic, city-destroying sandstorm London’s tubes will continue to run.

15. There’s always an ancient ritual.

16. Which will always be interrupted.

17. Tom Cruise cares too much.

18. Russell Crowe cares not at all.

19. Charlie Day wasn’t picking up the phone (but Jake Johnson was).

20. It’s ok to ‘liberate’ precious antiquities from the Middle East with no consent, care, or paperwork.

21. It’s ok to be a total liability as long as you’re in charge.

22. It's not ok to copy the Marvel Business Model with a completely unrelated series of properties in another genre and expect an automatic hit.